Uh-oh, a music album! What's this doing in a visual arts blog? I mean, the connection to actual "art" is already weak here...
Well, good question. And it's not here because of the album cover, though I like the picture--that would have been a few posts back. It is here because of the way Neil Young uses the album to tell a story.
Greendale, is a rock opera, about a family in a fictional town in California. It is about their experiences dealing with tragedy, and of course, it's delivered with an environmentally friendly message.
But, the way their story is told, is highly unusual. Greendale is not delivered like a straight-forward plot arc, with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, time in the album is relative. The songs appear out of order, and they reference each other in a manner that makes it difficult to determine which one should have come first. Additionally, only certain parts of the story are told, and large gaps are left between each point (or song), that the listener has to fill in via thematic interpolation. It is sort of an impressionist album. As Monet's lilypads were just an illusion of the real thing, rendered in a way that required viewer assumptions to connect them to the real item, Greendale requires similar amounts of effort on the part of the listener.
It's a fantastic way to tell a story. Since my work is heavily based in the idea of narrative, I find the idea of using an abstract storyline fascinating. Though I still tend to go for a literal, easy to follow plot, my most recent series is an attempt to imply narrative, without actually stating it.
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